Executive Summary
Aurum Mining acquired the Andash project in January 2005, Andash is a gold and copper project is in the Talas Valley in the North West of the Kyrgyz Republic on the border with Kazakhstan. The project is situated in the Tien Shan gold belt, which stretches across Central Asia from Uzbekistan in the west through to China in the east. The Andash project is 260km west of the capital Bishkek and the nearest village, Kopero Bazar, is 1.5km away. The licence area is at an elevation of between 2,100m and 2,400m and can be accessed year round by a combination of tar and dirt road. Major power lines are within 15km of the deposit.
Zone 1 of the project contains 624,000 ounces of gold and 72,000 tonnes of copper in a porphyry style orebody that has a core of unusually high grade ore. The ore body lies close to the surface and has a low strip ratio, which, combined with the site’s location close to appropriate infrastructure, should see a low cost mining operation developed in 2007 for production in 2008.
The exploration licence covers an area of 53km2 and is valid until December 2010, following an extension awarded to Aurum by the Kyrgyz authorities in February 2006. There is an undemanding work commitment of $60,000 in this calendar year as a condition of the licence extension, which the recent drill programme and feasibility work has already exceeded.
The State Agency for Geology and Mineral Resources of the Kyrgyz Republic awarded a mining licence for Zone 1 in November 2006. The licence is valid until 2017. Construction of the mine will commence in 2007, with production expected in 2008.
